E-commerce in China: Go Direct or Taobao?

China’s consumer market is experiencing explosive growth and many businesses are establishing a local online presence to target these consumers.

To gain ready access to a large pool of customers, many businesses are attracted to set up shop on Taobao, China’s most popular e-commerce platform.

While Taobao has many advantages, we recommend that businesses should also consider setting up its own e-commerce sites to further achieve its brand and business objectives. They should also focus on integrating their efforts across channels including physical stores and mobile.

Additionally, the system must support integration with multiple backend applications to optimize operational efficiency and visibility.

In this article, we give our review of Taobao for businesses and recommend an optimal solution for e-commerce in China.